Apps! (cough) Apps!

I got up early this morning thanks to a lovely coughing fit. Feeling better than yesterday, though.

I spent a bit of that early morning time playing some more with Bento, the FileMaker database app I mentioned yesterday. I forgot to mention that it accesses the Mac OS X Address Book and iCal too. This makes event planning sense.

I foresee a Macworld release for Bento (mid-January).

Tuesday also saw a major, tasty update (version 2.3) to World of Warcraft. The biggest change is under the hood: optimization for the common dual-processor machines like the Intel Core / Core 2 Duo-driven machines like almost all of the Intel Macs. Prior to yesterday's update, WoW would typically run almost exclusively in CPU#1 (I saw this in the Activity Monitor utility) and load it down to 80%+. After update, the load is much more balanced between the CPUs. They also tweaked the graphics animations (probably in response to Leopard's introduction of the Core Animation API).

The big fix from the gameplay point-of-view is that the leveling curve has been flattened between levels 30 and 60 by giving about 15% more XP per quest completed or monster slain and reducing the XP needed to level by about 15%. Prior to 2.3, leveling slowed waaaay down between levels 30 and 60. In addition, it became very difficult to "solo" a lot of the non-dungeon quests, and as a player hit level 40, far too many of the quests available in places like Arathi Highlands, Dustwallow Swamp and Stranglethorn Vale for leveling the character were simply not soloable. I'd usually bypass these quests and either go "grind" some easier monsters or hope to put together a pick up group (PuG) and hit a dungeon. Apparently this slowdown was frustrating so many new players that many were quitting. PuGs for dungeons can get really ugly.

I noticed the difference right away on my Level 55 Troll Shaman alt. It typically takes me 12 hrs or so of play to advance one level at 50+; I went from 54 + 50% to 55 in less than 4 hours. Me likes.

Oh and 10.4.11 and 10.5.1 updates come out today.



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Now playing: The Elders - Message from the Battle Zone
via FoxyTunes